Judgment :-

Tarun Chatterjee, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. This appeal is directed against the judgment and order dated 1st of November, 2006 passed in Civil Revision Case No. 4735 of 2001 by the High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh wherein the High Court had allowed the revision petition and set aside the judgment passed by the Appellate Authority, Chandigarh which had set aside the judgment and order of the Rent Controller, Chandigarh rejecting the application for eviction filed by the landlord/appellant (hereinafter referred to as the `appellant)

3. The appellant, who had purchased the House No. 189, Sector 11-A, Chandigarh (which is in a residential area) in an auction in 1990, raised a construction on that plot which is 500 Sq. Yds. (hereinafter referred to as "the demised premises"). As the appellant has settled in U.K., his father Shri Mange Ram, who is a permanent resident of India, had inducted the respondent as a tenant in a part of the residential premises for residential use in the month of April, 1994. The tenant/respondent (hereinafter referred to as the `respondent), according to the appellant, without the consent and permission of the appellant, started commercial activities in the demised premises from December 1994. The appellant filed an application under Section 13 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 (hereinafter referred to as "the Act"), for eviction of the respondent from the demised premises on the ground that although the demised premises was let out for residential purposes, the respondent had, without the consent and permission of the appellant, started using it for commercial use. The eviction application was dismissed by the Rent Controller, Chandigarh, against which an appeal was taken before the Appellate Authority, Chandigarh, which was allowed by its order dated 14th of August, 2001. Against this order of the Appellate Authority, the respondent filed a revision petition before the High Court and by the impugned Judgment of the High Court, the eviction petition of the appellant was dismissed and the order of the Rent Controller, Chandigarh was restored.

4. Feeling aggrieved, the appellant has filed this Special Leave Petition, which on grant of leave, was heard in presence of the learned counsel for the parties.

5. We have heard the learned counsel appearing for the parties and examined the impugned judgment as well as the judgment of the Appellate Authority and the Rent Controller, Chandigarh and other materials on record.

6. The questions that need to be decided in the present appeal are whether :

(i) the demised premises which is situated in a residential area and in a residential building can be used for commercial purposes even by consent of the appellant in view of Section 11 of the Act and the provisions of the Development and Regulation Act; and

(ii) if the residential premises is let out for commercial purposes, by a mutual agreement between the landlord and the tenant, can the landlord still seek eviction of the tenant on the ground that using of such residential premises for commercial purposes entails the tenant to be evicted from the demised premises?

7. Before we deal with question No.1 as posed herein earlier, let us first decide the question No.2.

8. In our view, this question must be decided in favour of the appellant. In Vinod Kumar Arora vs. Surjit Kaur [1987 (3) SCC 711], this Court has dealt with this question. At page 719, this court observed that –

"Even if the landlord and tenant had converted a residential building into a non residential one by mutual consent, it would still be violative of Section 11 of the East Punjab Rent Restriction Act and, therefore, the landlord cannot be barred from seeking recovery of possession of the leased building for his residential needs. We are therefore, of the view that the findings of the Rent Controller and the Appellate Authority about the appellant having taken the hall on lease only for running a clinic and that